


Game On

by fabfemmeboy



Series: Sincere Baked Goods [11]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-17 07:19:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13071909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabfemmeboy/pseuds/fabfemmeboy
Summary: Blaine attempts to show some school spirit, Kurt thinks there's exactly one good thing about football uniforms, Puck has seen too many bad movies, and Rachel can't keep her damn mouth shut.





	1. Chapter 1

He was doing this for his father and no one else.  
  
Apparently being part of a family meant that, in addition to everyone going to choir competitions and exhibitions where both boys were featured, Kurt was now expected to go to football games. Without complaint. He tried to point out that he had barely wanted to attend them when he was on the freaking team, but that didn't matter. Finn was playing in what could be the biggest game of his high school career, apparently, and that meant the family was going out to support him.  
  
Luckily for him, the fact that the game was being played on a Saturday night over in Grove City on the south side of Columbus meant Kurt had a perfectly valid justification for driving by himself instead of being stuck in the car with his dad and Carole and  _Rachel_  for two hours. After all, he had to help Blaine pack up his things to move to Puck's at some point during the weekend if they were going to McKinley first thing Monday morning, and it made sense to just spend the day near his old haunts in Westerville and at Blaine's house in New Albany, then meet his family at the game with a trunk full of Blaine's things to drive back to Lima.   
  
And it meant not having to spend four hours - more like five with the inevitable traffic - trapped with a girl who could be annoying on car trips under the best of circumstances. Considering the recent revelation from Puck about how Rachel had claimed he was a spy, or possibly a double agent, or possibly a triple agent, or god only knew what, he wasn't entirely sure he could get through the entire ride without suffocating her with his third-least-favourite scarf.   
  
What he hadn't counted on - and didn't quite know what to do with - was Blaine actually  _wanting_  to go to the game.  
  
"I'm sorry, explain this to me again," Kurt requested as he neatly folded each shirt in the pile and placed it in the suitcase.  
  
"What's to explain?" Blaine asked. He was busily condensing his DVD collection into a couple big wallets instead of the giant wall-sized shelf of cases.  
  
"I have no choice in the matter.  _I_  tried to get out of it. I'm going because I was threatened with a revocation of my credit card and a severe guilt trip about the last time I tried to weasel out of a family obligation. You have no such obligation. You could hang out here all night and talk to Wes and David on facebook, or go out with Charlie to that restaurant he's always talking about with the Asian food and the drag queen waiters, or figure out how to subtly redecorate Puck's house without anyone noticing you've gotten rid of the fabric on that couch."  
  
"Is it that bad?" Blaine asked with a faint smile. He hadn't actually seen his new digs yet; it didn't matter that much, he figured, as long as he had a place to crash and somewhere to plug in his laptop he'd be fine. But he knew Kurt could be more than a little dramatic on questions of style.   
  
"Chintz that matches absolutely nothing and isn't exactly soft to the touch."  
  
"Beats rugburn on your back," Blaine teased.  
  
Kurt glared - it was, as he knew from experience, but that wasn't the point. "Why are you going to the game when you're not being dragged to it?"  
  
Blaine shrugged. "Why not? I like football."  
  
Kurt stared at him. " _Why_?"  
  
"I don't know. I just do. Why don't you?"  
  
"Because as nice as it can be to watch someone slam my former tormentors to the field so hard they get the wind knocked out of them, mostly it's three hours of sitting in the cold while the surrounding spectators scream at the top of their lungs for the guys to be more macho. Believe me - I got my fill during my brief stint on the team." When Blaine stared at him like he'd lost his mind, Kurt dismissively added, "Long story, please don't ask."  
  
"I feel like I should, but...okay," Blaine replied with a kind of amused smile as he tried to picture Kurt who, while not exactly short, was also not exactly football-sized. "Anyway. It's also a good way to meet people, right? They'll be my classmates as of Monday, and it would be nice to walk into the school and know more than just you and Puck. Not that you two aren't great," he added, though Kurt suspected the 'two' was added just as cover since Blaine barely actually  _knew_  his future roommate yet. "But you should be able to have your own life at school without babysitting me. At the very least if I meet some of your friends it's less clingy."  
  
All week, he had been trying to be able to picture Blaine at McKinley, and it kept coming across like a paperdoll book or something - like cutting and pasting Blaine in his Dalton uniform into another hallway. Kurt knew logically things would be different, considering how different  _he'd_  been at the two schools, but it was something he couldn't really envision. It concerned him a little, and not just because he felt like the entire thing was his fault; he wondered if Blaine had any idea what he'd be walking into.   
  
Probably, he concluded. After all, hadn't that been the whole point? When they'd first started their friendship, before Kurt transferred, he trusted Blaine's input on how to deal with bullies because he'd been through it all already at his own school. It would be fine. Blaine would be fine. Maybe a little more walled-off, but they both would be so it would be no big deal.  
  
His phone buzzed with a text from Carole, stating that they were finishing up dinner on the road and would see him soon at the stadium. How passive-aggressive of her. His dad's text would have added something about making sure he got his butt there before the start of the game. "We should go. It's, what, about half an hour from here?"  
  
"Probably, with traffic," Blaine confirmed. He closed the entertainment center and strode to the closet. "You need more layers?" he asked, eying Kurt's ensemble suspiciously as it didn't look quite warm enough to sit outdoors for four hours in November.  
  
"I have a sweater in the car. Winter-white Gucci, very warm."  
  
"Okay." Blaine pulled on a thermal, then a tshirt, then a sweater, then grabbed his coat from its hook. "Red and black, right?"  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
"McKinley colours?" He seemed to recall that being what Puck's letterman jacket looked like, anyway, which was kind of his only indication.  
  
"Red, black, and white," Kurt replied suspiciously. Blaine nodded and plucked a red scarf from the shelf in his closet, then tied it around his neck European-style. "What-"  
  
"School spirit," he stated like it should have been obvious, then headed down the stairs towards Kurt's car.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Football this year had exactly one advantage over football last year, and it wasn't that they were winning games now - Kurt could've given a rat's ass about any of that. It wasn't like he actually paid attention to the game itself except when he was sitting on the bench, and even then it was only under duress.   
  
But now Tina was dating Mike, who was on the team, and she dragged Mercedes along for company, meaning unlike last year, he actually had people to talk to when he got dragged to the game.  
  
"So tell me who I need to know," Blaine declared as they sipped hot chocolate and stared at the field.   
  
Kurt was already wishing fingerless glovelettes weren't in-style - or that he had the fabulous Gaga-esque short leather gloves he'd been coveting for weeks now - because his fingertips were freezing. And who decided metal bleachers were appropriate for a sport played at night in November in Ohio? "Hm?"  
  
"I'm starting school with all these people in a couple days, so tell me - who should I know? A bunch of guys from the team are in glee club, right?"  
  
Kurt nodded. "Right. Well, two of them you know already."  
  
"Puck and Finn," he confirmed, but it was hard to identify them with helmets on. "Five's your stepbrother, right?" Blaine asked.  
  
"Height give him away?" Kurt asked dryly, and Blaine grinned. "Yes. He is."  
  
"So where's Puck?"  
  
Kurt searched for a minute and it occurred to him he couldn't guarantee which number Puck was. A year ago he'd been 20, Kurt thought he remembered maybe, and Finn's number was the same this year, but at least a few had changed. Karofsky had Azimio's old number, something about keeping the same digits for hockey, and he knew there was something about new positions bringing new numbers - apparently his 3 had been unusual for a kicker, but it had been the only jersey small enough to fit him.   
  
He searched for the familiar frame, but with pads on top of pads it was impossible to identify Puck from the little things he had memorized - the slope of his broad shoulders, the curve of his biceps (he wasn't seven so he refused to call them guns; when Puck did it, he just rolled his eyes)...even the way the guys stood was different in all that gear, or at least it looked different, so that was no help.  
  
But there was one area that wasn't obscured by pads.   
  
"Number 20, right there," Kurt pointed. "That's definitely his ass."  
  
"You see?" Blaine laughed. "The sport isn't  _that_  straight!"  
  
Kurt wasn't sure how to explain that he generally tried to keep his eyes as far away from the tight-fitting pants as possible. In fact, he tried to get into and out of the locker room as quickly as he could during his stint on the team. He was lucky the showers had dividers, he knew, but it had still been nervewracking enough.   
  
He hadn't needed to worry about that at Dalton. He did anyway - five years of middle- and high-school gym class had created a bit of a trauma response to it all - but the knowledge that he was going back into a place where he actively needed to concern himself with things like where his eyes were at all times was only made worse by a realization:  
  
Puck wasn't that big compared to other guys on the team.  
  
He was used to feeling kind of small compared to Puck, even though they weren't that different in height now. Puck was buff, he was broad and strong and muscular in a way that Kurt could never be even if he wanted to. But standing in the middle of a group of guys in the same size pads and everything, Kurt realized his boyfriend wasn't actually large or particularly menacing when matched up against the Azimios and Karofskys on the team. Let alone the defensive linemen...  
  
Finn was tall but scrawny and not especially agile or observant. Puck was at least a potential protector if things got as bad as he feared they might. But he wasn't actually as big as Kurt kept making him out to be when he remembered going to McKinley.  
  
At Dalton he'd been small-ish but kind of average-sized. Come Monday, he would be practically tiny again. Blaine could talk about strength in numbers, but he had a feeling that strength in  _strength_  would be more important.  
  
"Hey babe," Mercedes grinned as she sat next to him.   
  
It snapped him out of his thoughts and he forced a faint smile. "Hey."  
  
"Surprised to see you here - guess dating a jock really does change a person," she teased.  
  
Kurt chuckled. "No, but family does."  
  
"You're here for Finn instead of-"  
  
"Puck knows I don't come to games. We have an understanding."  
  
"You don't come to games and he doesn't come to...musicals or something?" Blaine asked.  
  
"Essentially," he replied dryly.  
  
Blaine reached past Kurt to offer his hand to Mercedes. "You must be the famous Mercedes."  
  
"Oh - right," Kurt said, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, I forgot you hadn't met yet. This is-"  
  
"Blaine, I'm guessing?" Mercedes asked, looking him up and down. She gave Kurt a look that clearly said "He's cute, I approve," and Kurt rolled his eyes. "Nice to meet you."  
  
"So what are you doing here?" Kurt asked. "I know you only came last year when I dragged you."  
  
"Who else would I hang out with? Everyone's here," she pointed out as Tina made her way over with a tray of snacks. "Everyone's either a Cheerio or dating someone on the squad."  
  
"See, now he's easier to find," Blaine commented. Puck's helmet was off and he seemed to be scanning the crowd. Kurt gave a small finger-waggling wave, but it was enough for Puck to see and he gave a kind of chin jerk nod in response.  
  
"He doesn't know what to do without a cheerleader to show off for during the game," Mercedes commented with a playful nudge of Kurt's shoulder.   
  
"He might have one soon," Kurt replied casually as he scanned the crowd to make sure that he could see his dad and Carole to ensure that they saw he had, in fact, fulfilled his obligation to show up and watch the game. Rachel was standing with them, which made sense since most of New Directions was pissed at her and no one else in the school really liked her anyway. His dad had the 'I don't even know what you're talking about, kid, but okay' look on his face, which amused Kurt more than it probably should have. He didn't want to sic rambly and excited Rachel on anyone.  
  
"What?" Tina asked.  
  
"Is he back with Santana again?" Mercedes asked. From her tone, Kurt suspected if he said the word Mercedes would totally cage-match Santana over her boy's honour, and he was tempted to take her up on it just because he could. And because he was still a little bitter over her number at Sectionals when she had made it a point to dance with Finn to prove a point to Rachel, then with Puck to prove a point to  _him_.  
  
"Don't know, I don't ask," Kurt stated.  
  
"Then who-"  
  
"I might go back," he stated, staring out at the field.  
  
There was silence from his friends for what seemed like awhile before Tina finally asked, "Why?"  
  
"If I'm stuck coming back to McKinley, I should at least do as many enjoyable things as I can," he mused. "And get as many people on my side as possible. Enough of the Cheerios are dating jocks that if they can call some of them off..." He wasn't wild about it, he hated the idea that he was essentially manipulating other people into keeping him safe, but going it alone had gotten him less-than-nowhere in the past. "Besides. The football season is almost over so they'll be gearing up for Nationals soon, and at least there I won't be accused of cheating." He cast an annoyed look in the general direction of where Rachel was sitting.  
  
To their credit, no one said anything - either to try to console him, to try to defend anyone's actions, or to try to express outrage on his behalf. He couldn't handle an entire evening of that.  
  
"So. We're catching Blaine up on who he should know about before he starts," he stated with a fake brightness. "First - number six there? Don't let the fake blond fool you, he's apparently straight and dating that Cheerio over there..."  
  
* * * * *  
  
There was a thing guys did in movies or whatever - when they scored the big touchdown or hit the winning homerun or something like that, they would point to the girlfriend or wife in the stands and everyone would stare and be all 'awwwww' about it. And even though he thought it was stupid, he knew from Finn talking about Rachel that girls thought it was really sweet.  
  
Kurt wasn't a girl. He knew that - it was part of the reason the dating or whatever it was, was actually working, he suspected. Kurt didn't get all clingy like the girls did, he didn't pressure him to commit or anything, he kind of got that Puck was the dude that he was and didn't want someone spending the whole time dogging on him to be someone else. It was kind of like the best of all worlds, where the guy understood him and the way he operated but still admired his guns and commented on his pecs. What was not to like?  
  
But the point remained, he got the feeling sometimes Kurt wanted more... _something_. Not like he was complaining, but he saw the way that Blaine kid got looked at and he wasn't wild about it. The way the two of them got all cutesy about crap, the way Kurt looked at him like wasn't he so fucking  _sweet_...  
  
Blaine would totally do the romance shit. And Puckzilla...didn't. Proudly, actively didn't.  
  
He didn't understand it. He didn't get feeling like this, like he freaking  _wanted_  to make some stupid giant gesture and make Kurt go 'awwwww' at him. Okay, so he loved the guy - maybe, kind of. Or completely. Whatever. Didn't matter. He'd loved Quinn, too, it didn't mean he wanted to go all pathetic and loser-y on her.   
  
But pointing to a guy in the stands was a lot less lame than bringing him dinner or something, which he'd seriously debated earlier in the week. He had his limits.  
  
Of course, that meant he had to score a touchdown first. Not like he didn't have skills, but Artie was getting a lot more running plays because so many guys wouldn't throw themselves on top of the kid in a wheelchair but had no problem trying to tackle Puckerone.   
  
The first half came and went without an opportunity - Artie scored the only touchdown of the half. They were up 7-3 at halftime, and as the team trudged into the locker room to be collectively lectured by Beiste. It was her way of praising them or something, but he still thought they should at least get eased up on if they were winning the thing - Mike asked, "Who's the guy up there with Tina and Kurt and Mercedes?"  
  
Puck followed his gaze up into the stands. The four were sitting midway up, laughing at something Blaine had said. Tina and Mercedes looked like they wanted to adopt him as their new best friend; Kurt looked like he wanted to ride off into the sunset with him. "That's Blaine," he stated, the disdain clear in his voice.   
  
"Who?"  
  
"Ohhh - that's the guy from the other school?" Sam asked. "The one he was trying to find a place for?"  
  
"Yeah," Puck confirmed, eyes narrow. "He's crashing with me."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"He's kinda cool," Finn offered. "He's gay but not like, Kurt-gay. Into sports and stuff."  
  
"Dude, gay is gay," Azimio commented helpfully from behind them as they entered the locker room. The sound of helmets slinging onto benches and lockers opening couldn't cover the remark, and Puck turned to glare at him.  
  
"The hell did you say?" Puck was surprised when it was Sam's voice that cut through the noise before his own could work out anything to say.   
  
"Ohh, that's right," Karofsky said in a voice of fake sudden remembrance, like it just occurred to him what was going on even though it was obvious he knew. "Puckerman can't say anything now, can he?"   
  
"C'mon, dude, lay off," Finn urged in a kind of darkly light tone, like he was trying to force everyone to shrug the whole thing off.  
  
"Not since he got bit by the gay bug and gave up his man-card," Azimio agreed.  
  
"I'm still more of a stud than you," Puck replied with an upward jerk of the eyebrow as he headed to his locker.   
  
"Then how come all you've got on your arm these days is that homo? There's no way back from that shit, dude. You used to have every woman in town, now it's just that little freak."  
  
"Maybe he likes 'em freaky," Karofsky suggested, moving oddly close to Puck's face as he said it. For a guy who was so afraid that being gay was contagious, he certainly didn't seem to have a problem touching him - or Kurt, from what he'd heard about bullying the last time around.   
  
"He certainly likes Santana, and that girl is an  _animal_ ," Azimio commented. "But she's a girl so maybe it's different-"  
  
"With Hummel, how can you tell?" Karofsky added with a disgusted tone.  
  
He'd been holding off on fighting back since he got out of juvie. He was on probation for the next eternity...okay, a little less than 18 months now, but still. Anything else, any slip-up, whether he meant to or not, and he was going back into baby-jail until he hit 18 at the earliest - possibly real jail for longer than that, depending on what he did.   
  
Fuck that.  
  
If it weren't for these douchebags, none of the sucky parts of the last few months would've happened. Kurt could've stayed at McKinley to begin with because he would've been safe and whatever. Which meant there wouldn't have been any of the cheating shit, or the part where he now had to come back which was making him way more depressed than if he'd never left. It was assholes like these two that made Kurt dread coming back in the first place. It was because of all that shit he had some guy he barely knew moving into his house where he could make eyes at his boyfriend all the freaking time and got to be the good guy because he gave up his entire school for Kurt. Puck had thrown a fit when Kurt left, he sure as hell hadn't volunteered to leave his school and his friends and his teams behind; how the fuck was he supposed to compare to this new kid?  
  
If it weren't for fucking Azimio and Karofsky, none of that would've happened and they could just be together and not have to worry about all the extra shit. Kurt could be halfway happy, even. And then they were gonna stand there and call his boyfriend a girl, while at the same time calling him a fag for dating the guy?  
  
Hell. Fucking. No.  
  
He couldn't positively identify how the fight turned physical, though he was fairly certain he probably was the one who started it - it seemed like a reasonable assumption, since he did remember later that he kind of got in Karofsky's face to try to smack him down, and next thing he knew he was rolling around on the floor with the guy. He got a good shot in to Karofsky's jaw, which the guy followed up with a cheap shot to the gut, and he wondered if better abs would've helped that. Probably not. He got in another decent punch to the head - not like Karofsky had much going on up there to worry about permanently damaging.   
  
It was all fuzzy, flashes of impact and the sound of guys yelling around them - mostly telling them to stop, a few cheering on one side or the other. He remembered clearly when Karofsky flipped them and his back hit the cold locker room floor hard enough to knock the wind out of him. It had been a long time since he'd had a fight with someone who was even close to a match for him; picking on dweebs and losers and people too weak and stupid to defend themselves had its perks. Even the fights with Finn, it was more a grappling match than anything else. He'd kind of expected something like this in juvie, but when he managed to game the social system to end up as the number-one badass there, he got complacent. This wasn't something he'd been expecting.  
  
His fists flailed at Karofsky's shoulders as he tried desperately to suck in air, and suddenly it was like the entire world went quiet and still. Karofsky was staring down at him with this complete look of-...was that fucking  _fear_? The dude was kinda halfway winning the round, what the fuck did he look like that for? Not just scared - freaking terrified and like he was trying to cover it up, but Puck wasn't that stupid.  
  
What the fuck did Karofsky think he was going to do to him?  
  
Oxygen now restored, Puck shoved the kind-of-bigger - okay, technically bigger, but less muscular so it didn't count for anything but bragging rights when he won - jock off him with a forceful grunt and got Karofsky's back against the lockers. Tactical and position advantage, Puckerone. The scared look was gone now, but it should've been back because now-  
  
"Hey!" Beiste's bark cut through the sound of blood rushing in his ears, through the noise of the confused but enthusiastic onlookers, and he felt a beefy hand grabbing him by the shoulder and pulling him up. He came up still fighting, and it was only because Sam and Finn both held him back that he didn't get a good lunge at Karofsky - dude would be pinned against the lockers completely now, limited arm motion, and total defeat position. Puck could  _own_ that shit now- "The hell are you two doing?" she demanded.  
  
"He started it," Puck replied automatically, even though he didn't expect anyone to believe him.  
  
"Yeah, right," Karofsky snorted. He wiped blood from his nose with the back of his hand; Puck vaguely remembered causing that. Maybe. "He was coming on to me."  
  
"The hell he was," Sam shot back. His angry glare was mirrored by Mike, and Artie had a particularly sullen 'I'm gonna kick your ass, yo' look on his face.  
  
Finn looked like he just wanted to be anywhere but there.   
  
Puck rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. Yeah, he could defend himself, but not like Beiste would listen to him anyway. Teachers never did, not even Mr. Schue, not if it was his word against another student's. Whatever. Apparently being a badass who didn't take anyone's crap meant he was freaking never going to get the benefit of the doubt.   
  
Kurt was gonna kill him. Nevermind that he was defending him - Kurt wasn't gonna be happy. Not like he was relishing the thought of going back to juvie or anything, if only because sex sharks didn't do very well there. It was all guys and he still wasn't  _that_  gay.   
  
He put on his best 'whatever, bored now' expression while Beiste yelled something about how teammates shouldn't do this, and what the hell were they thinking, doing it during a playoff game, and now she had to decide what to do without two of her starters in the second-half of the regional championship. He didn't understand half of what she said anyway, it usually had to do with farm animals and something being just not right. Besides, what did it matter? The outcome was predetermined, and he wasn't about to say he was sorry for it anyway.   
  
"Everybody back out there," Beiste commanded, and the team complied. She kept one hand firmly on each boy's shoulder to ensure neither Puck nor Karofsky could mistake the order as including them. Finn looked nervously back over his shoulder at Puck as he left, like he wasn't sure if he should be saying something or not. If it weren't for the fact that Puck was well acquainted with Finn's kind of hapless following-the-leader quality, he would have assumed it was back to being a homophobia thing. No, this wasn't anything so easy to write off; it was Finn being  _Finn_ , and that almost pissed him off more. Sam had known him like four freaking months and stood up for him; Finn was his boy and hadn't said a damn thing.  
  
What was worst? People would be considering it progress that Finn hadn't actively agreed with Karofsky.   
  
"What happened?" she asked, eyes narrow as she stared him down. She could be downright intimidating - y'know, for a girl.  
  
"Does it matter?" he replied flippantly.  
  
"Don't give me that."  
  
He sighed and rolled his eyes and stated, "Just a bunch of antigay crap. Nothing new." It was true - it wasn't like any of it was crap he hadn't heard at least a couple times a week since he was 9, and he knew Kurt had gotten it for a lot longer. If he was being really honest, he had to admit he'd said at least some of that shit before he joined glee club. Maybe a little after, too, but still. It wasn't even like he'd never had it directed at him before; the second great slushie war that started after people knew he was hooking up with Kurt came with its share of insults towards him.  
  
He just hadn't heard it directed at Kurt since he started caring, he guessed.   
  
Beiste's jaw tightened, and Puck wasn't sure which one of them that meant was in more trouble. He knew it wasn't a good sign, but beyond that couldn't tell. "Karofsky, you're off the team," she stated in a voice that left no room for argument.  
  
Except, apparently, for people as dumb as Karofsky. "You can't do that-"  
  
"You think I can't?" she bellowed.  
  
"I have free speech, I can call him a queer if I want to- My dad's a lawyer-"  
  
"You wanna push me, Karofsky? You have no idea what the Panther can do." She shoved his helmet at him. "Pack up your stuff. You're done." Karofsky looked bewildered, shocked for a moment, then his eyes narrowed and he glared directly at Puck. "Puckerman. Back on the field."  
  
He didn't need to be told twice.


	2. Chapter 2

Halftime was the one part of the evening Kurt understood, and not just because it was the only part that involved music. He knew the lifts, he appreciated the number of hours that went into what looked like a simple jump, he noticed tiny things that Sue would rip the squad apart for later but no one else in the stands - possibly not even Mercedes - would see. His cheerleading eye wasn't as good as his musical ear, but it was pretty good considering he'd only been paying attention for about ten months now.  
  
"They're really good," Blaine commented, clearly impressed.  
  
"There's a reason they win so many championships," Kurt replied. He didn't realize he'd missed it until he started watching.   
  
"And that reason is one Sue Sylvester," Mercedes imitated.  
  
Kurt grinned. "Mock her if you want, but she knows how to push people to make them better."  
  
"And into passing out," Mercedes replied.  
  
"And to kill themselves," Tina added, mostly joking.  
  
Kurt shrugged and went back to watching. They'd never been happy about him being on the squad after Mercedes left - he still wasn't sure he understood her reason for actually quitting. If it had been after she sang 'Beautiful,' he would have gotten that. He felt bad about how he'd acted that week and he'd told her as much. If Sue had ever told him to swish less or be less gay, he would have done essentially the same thing - though in his case it might have involved an Elton John medley. Or Cher. But quitting because she was dating Puck and didn't like being popular?  
  
He had spent his first eight years of school trying to be invisible because that meant he was tortured less, then suddenly people knew who he was for something other than being an easy target for slushies. The way people looked up when the red and white uniform passed...and didn't take that as a cue to hoist the wearer into a dumpster, like they did when they saw a bright shawl-collared sweater pass? The automatic respect the uniform got?  
  
It was the closest he could get to what he felt at Dalton, he concluded.   
  
He hated that he  _wanted_  a uniform. After all, it wasn't as though McKinley didn't have its own version - anything in Finn or Puck's closets would've accomplished the same thing, made him more palatable, more respectable, but it wasn't the same anyway. The Cheerios got noticed, which he craved...but in a good way, which he needed.   
  
It wasn't just about the apparel, he concluded. It was...it was like being a Warbler. It was being part of the rockstar crowd - and not just part of it, either. Being a  _star_  in the rockstar crowd.  
  
At Dalton it had been a nice thing, a plus, a kind of added bonus on top of an already-great school atmosphere. At McKinley, it would be absolutely essential. Unless he wanted to start grooming himself as Puck's bimbo love interest and hope for scraps of safety because people feared his boyfriend, and that was too desperate for him. Not that he didn't want to be seen with Puck, or wanted to try to conceal their relationship, but that felt a little too much like using him or something.   
  
"Who's that?" Blaine asked, pointing to a blonde dancer who was absolutely killing it. "She sings with you guys, right?"  
  
Kurt nodded. "Brittany."  
  
"She's amazing."  
  
"And completely clueless," Tina added with just a little jealous glare. Yes, she had Mike Chang and his killer abs, but that didn't mean she reveled in the thought of her exboyfriend dating the hot cheerleader that every guy in school had made out with.  
  
"Don't you hate when the people who are amazing have no idea they are? It makes them so hard to hate," Blaine smiled.  
  
"Like you're one to talk," Kurt replied with a fond grin. Blaine looked at him curiously, and Kurt blushed faintly and looked back out at the field, watching as the Cheerios danced around the poor band geeks, several of whom looked like they might die of happiness just from being in the vicinity of hot girls.  
  
"No, just clueless," Tina explained, ignoring the look that passed between them.   
  
"She's sweet though," Kurt explained.   
  
"You just say that 'cause you two went out," Mercedes teased.  
  
Blaine's eyes widened. " _She_  was the first kiss?" he asked, looking like he was trying so hard not to laugh it was physically painful for him.  
  
"She was perfectly...respectful," he tried miserably. "Okay, fine - she tasted like rootbeer and kind of pinned me to the couch with no possible escape. But she's still sweet. Dim, but she means well."  
  
"That's true," Tina allowed. "Just don't mess with Santana. She's bad if you mess with anyone she likes, but Brittany's kind of special."  
  
"The ex?" Blaine asked. "Who sang the-"  
  
"Yes," Kurt replied tightly.  
  
"Got it," he nodded.  
  
As the performance concluded with a series of insane flips, the crowd went wild but Kurt instinctively heard Sue's criticisms distorted through a bullhorn - it was a reflex, like starting to hear the next song from your usual playlist when a song ends on the radio. Smiling faintly at the familiarity, he looked up to see Mercedes starting for the aisle. "Where are you going?"  
  
"Wanna say hey to Quinn," she replied.   
  
Kurt nodded and stood to join her. "Coming?" he asked Blaine.  
  
"Why not?" Blaine replied with an affable smile as he followed along behind.  
  
While Cheerios technically didn't get any part of the game 'off', they were usually easiest to track down or engage in the few minutes between halftime and the start of the third quarter. Surely enough, when they reached the fence between the bleachers and the track there were a number of other people greeting friends, dates, and potential paramours. "Hey Quinn," Mercedes grinned.   
  
Quinn tightened her ponytail and jogged over. She and Mercedes hugged awkwardly over the fence. "Hey."  
  
"Great dismount out there."  
  
"Thanks." She smiled a little shyly, like she knew she was meant to be stonefaced out here with her pasted-on exhibition grin, but she could never keep it up around Mercedes.  
  
"Your left leg was slow on the toss," Kurt commented, but she knew him well enough to know it wasn't really an insult - just a Cheerios thing.   
  
"You try it sometime," she shot back in the same tone. "I didn't expect you to be out here."  
  
"Brotherly obligations," he replied dryly. He could see Sam peeling off from the team to sneak up on Quinn, and he said nothing - but did scan the group of guys for Puck. Not like they'd exactly start making out over the fence or anything, but he figured that showing up at a football game despite their understanding (and even though Puck would know in exactly 2 seconds that Kurt wasn't there because of him) couldn't hurt.  
  
"I'm sure-" she squealed as Sam wrapped an arm around her waist and awkwardly lifted her a few inches off the ground, spinning her around. "Hey!"  
  
"Hey," Sam replied with a grin that made everyone kind of roll their eyes because it was that cheesily lovestruck.   
  
"Yeah, yeah, you two, we get it," Mercedes teased. It was clear she was happy for Quinn, but at the same time Kurt felt kind of guilty. For a long time it had been the two of them hanging out whenever everyone else coupled off - Puck and Santana, Sam and Quinn, Finn and Rachel, Artie and Tina but now Artie and Brittany and Mike and Tina...they'd been each other's non-dates to every event for the previous year, and now she was the only one not coupled-off.  
  
Well, and Blaine, but that was another matter entirely. He still didn't know any gay guys that Blaine didn't also know, so he would substantially less help in that area. But thanks to Dalton, he did know plenty of available straight boys who might be metro-ish enough for Mercedes, who were gentlemen, who would treat her well. He made a mental note to start figuring out who to fix her up with just as soon as everything was a little more settled.   
  
He didn't know what it was about the crowd atmosphere and all the hyper-heteronormativity around him that made him want to kind of be the Cheerio to Puck's star athlete, but a part of him kind of desperately wanted to spot the mohawk, call his boyfriend over, and flirt with him before the second half started. And maybe a short makeout session - very short. Painfully short. But still.  
  
Sam saw him scanning the bench. "Dude, he's still in the locker room. Some  _weird_  crap went down."  
  
Kurt blinked. "Is he okay?"  
  
"Yeah. Well...I think. He seemed like it." That didn't answer  _any_  of Kurt's underlying questions, but he didn't quite know how to form any of the ones he wanted to ask. He didn't know enough to ask, really. "He got in a fight with Karofsky."  
  
"He what?"  
  
"Yeah, Karofsky was being a total asswipe and saying shit - you know how he is," Sam replied, deliberately not going into precisely what had been said; no reason Kurt needed to know that, certainly not right now. "Puck got in his face and it kind of went from there. He didn't seem hurt too bad, but Beiste is freaking  _pissed_ , man."   
  
A bellowed "Huddle up!" in Beiste's hard-to-mistake voice directed Kurt's attention back to the bench, and he saw Puck, helmet already on, hanging over near Artie and Mike. He tried to get his boyfriend's attention to no avail. Sam excused himself with a quick kiss for Quinn then jogged to join his teammates for the second half.  
  
"What was that all about?" Blaine asked as he saw a variety of looks - confused from Quinn, concerned from Mercedes, and Kurt just looked... _stricken_  seemed too strong, but it was the closest he could come up with.  
  
"I'm going to go grab some snacks - who wants something?" Kurt asked in the strongest, most even voice he could muster.  
  
"Are you okay?"  
  
"Fine," he shrugged off Blaine's concern. When no one gave him a food order, he offered, "I'll meet you back at our seats in a few minutes" before disappearing into the sea of sportsfans.  
  
He didn't know what had happened. He didn't need to - he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to. It didn't take a genius to figure out that it was probably over him.   
  
He wasn't sure why it bothered him this much, why it felt like he could barely breathe. He reached up and loosened his scarf, as much as he hated to do so, clawing it roughly away from his neck. Despite the icy, clenching fear in his stomach and the chill of the air around him, his limbs felt like they were burning, tingling, about to start twitching with too many electrical impulses. He felt caged and desperate, ready to jump out of his skin, like he had to be more vigilant about who was around him at any given time.  
  
It hadn't been like this before, had it? When he'd been at McKinley before - there had been nervousness, and a shitton of frustration and anger and indignation. He seemed to remember feeling resigned most of the time, like that was just the way things were. This was most certainly not resignation; it was terror, paranoia, a feeling of complete lack of ease.  
  
And he wasn't sure why.  
  
Karofsky was a muttonhead with anger issues, that was nothing new. He liked to pick on anyone he even thought  _might_  be gay - see for example one Finn Hudson, who was most definitely straight (and Kurt had the emotional scars to prove it). Puck had anger issues of his own and wasn't shy about getting into fights...  
  
...Except he kind of was, Kurt realized. Puck did all kinds of fucked-up things, he was a bully - or he had been, he'd mellowed quite a bit over the previous year - but just like he wasn't a homophobe despite his prior ignorance, just like he didn't target kids for being anything other than a loser, he didn't pick fights with people and he definitely didn't take on guys his size. He picked on lowlifes, but it occurred to Kurt that he'd never known Puck to get into an actual altercation with anyone but Finn and that was kind of a...brother thing. Like how he could say things to Mercedes no one else could.   
  
Puck getting into a fistfight with a Karofsky in a locker room was definitely not nothing. And there were a limited number of subjects over which the fight could be; he was about certain it had to be over Karofsky calling Puck gay.   
  
And it would only get worse now, with him being back at school...Blaine being there as a second out gay kid might help him, it wouldn't help Puck. They were in completely different social strata, and if this thing with Karofsky signaled a ramping-up of the harassment that had been comparatively minimal the first time around...He got that Puck wasn't running away now, he knew that, but it still felt almost unfair.  
  
"Kurt?"  
  
A voice behind him snapped him out of his admittedly-irrational concerns for Puck's wellbeing at school (and his own perfectly wellfounded concerns for his own wellbeing); he was glad for a half-second until he identified the source. "Rachel," he replied coldly, turning to face her.  
  
"How are you? I heard you start back on Monday - are you in the same classes or-"  
  
"Go away, Rachel."  
  
She looked surprised, confused, hurt, then asked, "What's wrong?"  
  
"I know what you said. About Sectionals. It's because of you that I'm stuck back in the school where I literally had pig testicles tied to my locker and came home with bruises every day. I will deal with you insofar as I'm required to because you're my stepbrother's girlfriend. But beyond that? Don't. Talk. To. Me," he concluded tightly, eyes narrow and ferocious. He turned and stalked towards the concessions line, which had mostly died down as people took their seats to watch the third quarter.  
  
"What do you mean, it's because of me?" she demanded, following him. Her fists were balled angrily at her sides. "I didn't do anything."  
  
"You said I was spying. First you said I spied against you, then you said I spied  _for_  you. Because that would really be worth screwing up the only good thing that's ever happened to me."  
  
"Okay." At the uncharacteristically-noncombative, nondefensive response, he turned in surprise to look at her. "I did say that. Actually, I didn't - I said it could appear that way and that if someone were to think that, they wouldn't be acting illogically. I didn't actually say you spied. For one thing, you didn't give us any information and you didn't have any information to give the other side. I grilled Finn and Puck about it, they agree you didn't know anything about our number."  
  
"Then why did you say we cheated?" he demanded coldly. "If you didn't say I did anything wrong, then why in the world would you go to the Committee?"  
  
Her eyes widened in surprise. "I didn't," she stated quietly.  
  
"Really."  
  
She shook her head slightly. "I wasn't the one who went to the Committee. And Mr. Schue didn't mean to make it about you."  
  
It wasn't until he felt dizzy that he realized he had stopped properly inhaling when she said that. "Excuse me?"  
  
"He wasn't trying to drag you into it. He was trying to just go to them about Goolsby and the fact that he was coaching both teams. But then it came out about Sunshine and the two other kids at Vocal Adrenaline, and because of timing..."  
  
Mr. Schuester had never been fond of him, he'd figured that out a long time ago. He could never quite figure out why. It wasn't as simple or obvious as Finn's latent homophobic streak, even if it did feel like that sometimes - his insistence on pairing only male-female vocals together when two guys or two girls could sound just as nice (better, in some cases), his insistence that Kurt was a guy and therefore couldn't sing girl songs but at the same time never giving him a shot at any of the guy songs...it was never an active dislike, either, far more passive. Ignoring him, ignoring his song suggestions, ignoring his problems... It wasn't even just about walking past the dumpster-tossing without a second glance - that wasn't his favourite moment ever, but the fact that he'd forgiven Puck for his very active involvement meant he should probably forgive Mr. Schue for his passive lack of involvement. The man had freaking tried to talk to him about being the victim of bullying after two years of doing nothing and had essentially told him that, if it had never bothered him before, he didn't understand why it was bothering him now. He had patronizingly tried to talk about how maybe "Kurt's going through something" during the height of the post-slushie-war torment when he got into the fight with Azimio.   
  
And now this?   
  
Mr. Schue had watched plenty of things crumble around Kurt without ever stepping in to help and rebuild, the way he would have if it were Finn's life falling apart. Kurt had gotten used to that; that didn't even make him angry anymore. But Kurt had finally built his very own Barbie Dream House of a school (only not quite so pink) and Mr. Schue had taken a fucking sledgehammer to the thing.  
  
By the time he got back to his seat, a bottle of water clenched in his first, he was so angry he was practically shaking. "What happened?" Mercedes asked automatically.   
  
Blaine touched his upper-arm and Kurt stiffened, then replied, "Nothing."  
  
"That's crap."  
  
He didn't even have the words to express his outrage, so he settled for the much simpler explanation. "Ran into Rachel." They accepted his explanation and didn't press further; it made sense why he would be so angry after running into the girl who accused him of espionage at least twice in a week. Rachel was enough to piss someone off on a good day, let alone when there were complicating factors.  
  
He was glad they didn't push him on it, give him the third degree - he knew Mercedes and Tina easily could when they wanted to, and while he'd gotten decent at rebuffing their attempts when he really couldn't handle it, Blaine had this way of making him unable to keep his walls up and he didn't know how to deal with that right now.  
  
He didn't know a lot of things right now.  
  
There was exactly one thing of which he could be certain: No way in a frozen freaking hell was he going back to New Directions.  
  
* * * * *  
  
It was the beginning of the fourth quarter when he got his shot.  
  
The field they were playing on wasn't great, it kept getting torn up by the cleats more easily than the field at McKinley, and midway through the game it started snowing - not much, and it didn't stick, it was just enough to make the ground wet, which meant it turned from a crappy grass field to crappy grass field with random mud patches. Artie's wheelchair had the all-terrain wheels, but at a certain point people started slipping too much pushing him down the field to actually get a decent speed going. So for the last quarter Beiste put in Sackachinsky, which meant Puck was back to his status as number-one go-to runningback and all-around owner of the long game.  
  
Sucked for Artie, kind of, but considering Sam had been stuck on the bench most of the season even though he was really good, it wasn't something he gave too much thought to. It was just the game. Besides, they were up by 10.  
  
The play Finn called dissolved pretty quickly - the subbed-in right guard was complete shit and failed to make the block, so Finn tossed a kind of weak Hail Mary just to get it out of his hands before he got sacked. Puck had been playing with him long enough that he could predict where the ball was going practically before it was thrown most of the time, and even with the crappy, desperate throw he managed to position himself for the catch.   
  
From there it was kind of a blur. The defense was heavy on the line - 5-2 he thought he remembered, or something close to that - because they were trying to pin their hopes on being able to tackle Sackachinsky now that they didn't have to worry about how bad it would look to tackle the kid in the wheelchair. So by the time Puck got out in front of the ball and made the catch, it was mostly wide-open. He swerved, pivoting quickly to avoid the strong safety, and made it across the goal line a good five yards ahead of anyone even trying to catch him.  
  
There was nothing quite like having a stadium full of people cheering for you. Well, half a stadium - the other side's bleachers weren't such a big fan of him.   
  
Okay, it wasn't totally the dramatic moment it probably should've been. In the movies they'd be down by 6 in the last play of the game, with the national championship on the line and an 80-yard rush. He didn't care.   
  
He felt like he should take his helmet off for this - they would in the movies, right? Though...come to think of it? He didn't actually remember any movies where they did this. He knew it was something people were meant to do in cheesy chick-flicks, but his knowledge of football movies was pretty much Rudy, Remember the Titans (thanks to his sister), Varsity Blues, and Brian's Song (which he did  _not_  cry at, thank you very fucking much, but Finn did and he had pictures to prove it). No touchdown-ball-pointing in any of those, at least not that he remembered.  
  
Not really much time to think about it, and with adrenaline still pumping and making him feel a thousand feet tall, he extended his arm and the ball in the direction of where he'd seen Kurt sitting earlier - it was hard to find him in the sea of red and black, and he hoped the guy hadn't done something jackassish like change sections at halftime.   
  
"What is he...?" Kurt asked slowly. He had done more cheering than expected when Puck scored - what? Just because he didn't like the game didn't mean he couldn't be happy when someone he liked did well at it, right? - but this was some new sports-related ritual with which he wasn't familiar. He didn't speak straight-boy, and the big pointing gestures he was used to generally meant 'I'm gonna kick your ass, so watch yourself!'...which was clearly not the meaning here.  
  
"Awwww!" Tina grinned.  
  
Mercedes was practically dancing with him even though they were both sitting down, beyond excited. People were staring at him now, and he couldn't figure out why. Okay, fine, because Puck was pointing at him, but what the hell did  _that_  mean? He couldn't see anything because of the damn helmet, for all he knew Puck could be pointing and laughing at him...well, he did know better than that, but that wasn't the point. He couldn't tell if the guy was smiling or smirking - or what his eyebrows were doing. He was fluent in Puck's eyebrows, why couldn't that be more useful right about now? No, instead he got an arm extended with a ball attached, all in his general direction, while people cheered because they'd scored a touchdown.  
  
(Contrary to popular belief, he  _did_  know that much. He was hardly a fan of the game, but he  _had_  played for more than a month and knew enough to pay attention to what was going on, even if it did take the first three weeks to figure out the whole offensive/defensive team thing.)  
  
Then the moment was over and he slammed the ball to the ground and did a kind of ridiculous and thoroughly Puck-like dance in the endzone before the team set up for the kicker.  
  
"What was that all about?" he asked.  
  
"Boy's been taking lessons or something, upping his game," Mercedes gushed.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Think of it like the macho equivalent of putting on a bad letter sweater and singing 'You're the One that I Want' in front of the entire school carnival," Blaine explained. While Grease was hardly Kurt's idea of a brilliant musical, he got the comparison, even if he wasn't sure where that left him in all of this other than standing in a black catsuit with too much eye makeup and a bad perm. "It's like blasting Peter Gabriel outside the your window."  
  
Now the analogies had gone from bad to just ridiculous. He was no Sandy - and Puck was definitely no Danny. He didn't do things like this, Kurt knew that. In fact, he'd been expressly warned by Puck himself not to expect grand gestures. No dances, no flowers, no candy - the diet pop was the most he did, he'd claimed.   
  
Then he sang the Meat Loaf song, Kurt recalled. Even if he couldn't sing the key lyric, it was still...it was a big freaking deal. He got that. He wouldn't diminish that. But this was different - it was something far less insistent but at the same time so much more demonstrative.  
  
The song was private, the two of them in the choir room with no one to hear but him. It was deep and meaningful and trying to win him back even if it didn't quite go the way either of them wanted. This football thing was more like a public declaration of everything the song said privately.  
  
He had no idea what to do with that.  
  
On one hand, he wanted to jump up and down and giggle and gush that the hottest guy in school was pointing to  _him_ \- not Santana, not Quinn, not one of the hot girls, but  _him_ , the guy who'd been beyond a loser for most of his time in school and not just because homosexuality was so terrifyingly contagious according to his peers. He was too smart and acted too much like an adult sometimes and was cold and distant and theatrical...and Puck wanted to show him off anyway? He was over the freaking moon. Puck wanted to be  _the guy_ , with a gesture like that, he would totally walk down the halls hand-in-hand with him or something.   
  
At the same time, he was absolutely terrified, because what the hell did something like that even  _mean_  going forward? It wasn't something clearcut, it wasn't something he could easily google, and the movies always stopped before they got to the "now what?". The movies ended with the grand gesture, maybe they montaged some kind of future togetherness but he had no idea what came next. Was he supposed to reciprocate the gesture - and if so, what the hell would that be? Was it the kind of thing that, once it happened, happened a lot, like making out?   
  
And what happened when everyone else in town realized who Puck was pointing to? This thing with Karofsky was already a bad sign, and there was a chance it could only be the beginning now that he'd be back in locker-slamming distance. Taking things out on him had been bad enough, but taking things out on Puck...that was a level of guilt beyond what he could legitimately handle. Between that, and still feeling guilty that Blaine was leaving Dalton  _over him_  (if not  _for_  him)...  
  
Putting the two in the same category made him feel even more uneasy. He wasn't sure where it had come from or precisely how to separate it all back out again.  
  
* * * * *  
  
As the clock hit zero, a cheer went up from the McKinley side of the stadium – with a score of 34-21, McKinley was moving on to the...state championship? Something like that, Kurt knew. He knew it was a game next Saturday and, judging from signs, would be played somewhere else in the general vicinity of Columbus. Another fun-filled evening, he was sure, but it hadn't been entirely bad. Now, part of that was because he had Blaine and Mercedes and Tina to snark with, but watching his friends play well...okay, he would admit it. It was kind of nice. He wished it could have been a sporting event he understood, or some other activity – he had nothing against watching Puck and Finn and Sam and Mike and Artie all compete in ice dancing, for example, or synchronized swimming – but as much as it pained him to think it...  
  
He hadn't hated it. At least not completely. Or a little.  
  
Not like he was going to say that out loud to anyone, except maybe Blaine. Okay, fine, or Puck if he had to, but that would lead to  _way_  too much teasing and next thing he knew, Puck was going to expect him to sit through basketball games or something, or to start approving of stirrup pants come baseball season.  
  
While most of the people in the stands filtered immediately out to the parking lot, Kurt saw a few hanging out at the edge of the field to make plans with players for later. “Mind hanging out a few minutes?” he asked Blaine.  
  
“That's fine – it'll mean missing traffic anyway, right? The parking lot's gonna be a madhouse right now.”  
  
Kurt led the way down towards the bench, kind of surprised that Puck hadn't made an immediate break for the showers. He was talking to a guy Kurt didn't really know, and it wasn't until he turned that Kurt saw the bruising that was already tinging Puck's swollen cheek greenish-brown. His eyes widened at the sight as Puck jogged towards him. “Hey.”  
  
“What the hell happened?” Kurt demanded.  
  
Puck shrugged. "I thought you liked battle scars."  
  
"What happened?" he asked again, hands on his hips.  
  
"Whatever," Puck replied. His face didn't hurt as much as his side was going to, but at least that was easier to pass off as a football injury - no way something could bruise his cheek with his helmet on, so Kurt was going to know that one wasn't from innocent game play.  
  
"I know you got into it with Karofsky," Kurt stated dryly.  
  
If Puck was surprised, he covered it well. "More like kicked Karofsky's ass," he replied with his best badass head-weave.   
  
"Are you out of your mind?" Kurt demanded. "Do you know what's going to happen now? You're on probation, they're going to send you back to-"  
  
"It's fine, man, calm down."  
  
"How are you so calm? You remember there's no sex in juvie, right?"  
  
Puck snorted. "Yeah. But it's all good - Beiste was cool about it."  
  
"Right," Kurt replied sarcastically.   
  
"Kicked Karofsky off the team."  
  
"What's happening to you then?" he asked.  
  
Puck shrugged. "Nothing. She didn't suspend me or whatever."  
  
"Don't take this the wrong way, but you never get that lucky." Puck snorted and Kurt added, "What the hell were you thinking?"  
  
Puck rolled his eyes. "Are you taking over for my mom now?" He couldn't win. He defended the guy, he got bitched at. If he hadn't defended the guy, he'd be getting bitched at - unless of course he was Finn, who just didn't do anything and didn't get called out on it, but that wasn't even the fucking point this time. He was  _trying_  to do the right thing, to step up and be a man about it, but did that matter? Of course fucking not. "Cause that's creepy."  
  
"Why-"  
  
"He was saying shit about you. What was I gonna do? Let him and not freaking do anything?"  
  
Kurt stared at him, dumbstruck. It wasn't because Karofsky was running his mouth about  _Puck_ , calling  _him_  gay, it was-  
  
Oh god.  
  
Puck could have seriously gone to jail for defending his honour...and all over a guy who was going to be a jerk anyway. Hell, Karofsky calling him names was the least obnoxious thing the guy had done - he was used to it, if he was being completely honest, and he seriously doubted that this was going to actually make it better. After all, now Karofsky had a  _reason_  to hate them - an actual reason, not just "You're gay and that's gross"; Puck had gotten him kicked off the football team, now he was going to be even worse because he had less to lose.  
  
But at the same time...Puck could have gone to jail for defending his honour and did it anyway.  
  
He wasn't sure whether to smack his boyfriend upside the head for being an idiot or hug him so tightly it bordered in clinging.   
  
This was over someone saying something; he could only imagine what Puck would do if he saw someone pushing him around come Monday. On one hand, it was almost certainly going to lead to the guy getting in trouble again, and he was absolutely not worth that. But on the other...  
  
He hated that he needed to be defended at school. He hated that he was in a position where this was seriously sounding like a good thing, having someone who would literally fight for him. He hated the idea of having to rely on someone else to stand up for him; he wasn't particularly strong or threatening, but he was a little too proud for that. But the fact was...he did need that. Unless he wanted to go back to nursing bruises every afternoon, and unless Blaine's plan really was that likely to work (and he kind of adored the guy, but his advice was notoriously bad and his plans weren't necessarily much better), he needed people to have a reason not to kick his ass. Puck's wrath was notorious at McKinley. Kids literally threw themselves into lockers and dumpsters if he quirked his eyebrow a certain way. Unlike Karofsky's harassment, Puck's version of justice was consistent, too - there were things that proved an automatic ticket to whatever punishment was in store, and while most of the time it was pure social status, it meant people knew what consequences laid in store.  
  
If people knew that messing with him meant messing with Puck, and that the guy would take no prisoners?  
  
And they  _would_  know, what with the grand gesture stuff, wouldn't they? The entire school - hell, practically the entire town - had seen Puck point to him in what was apparently a classic romantic gesture in sports parlance. Combined with the knowledge that Karofsky had gotten kicked off the team for a fight Puck started over him...  
  
He knew Puck hadn't thought that far through any of it - he loved the guy, but Puck was kind of impulsive. Okay, fine - very impulsive. He had stolen an ATM for fuck's sake. But the end result was there anyway.  
  
He didn't know what to say. His mouth opened but words wouldn't really form. He finally settled on a very quiet "Why?"  
  
Puck met his eyes and shrugged again. "What else was I gonna do?" The look in his eyes made Kurt almost shiver - or it could've been from his fourth hour standing around in sub-freezing temperatures.   
  
"You do know you can't just go around kicking the ass of everyone who insults me, right? You'll practically be living in the principal's office."  
  
"Worth it," Puck replied, and it didn't escape Kurt's notice that there was no pronoun to start the sentence - it was neither 'it's worth it,' as in the act of punching Karofsky was worth any consequences, nor 'you're worth it' which would be a little too much of an admission even for this apparently new-and-improved, gesture-making Puck.   
  
He didn't know what to say. So he settled for what had always worked better for the two of them than trying to come up with words anyway - he leaned in for a hard kiss that ended up being somewhere between grateful and moved, and hoped Puck got the message.  
  
Puck wrapped his arms around him, hand coming to rest along the waistband of Kurt's jeans to draw the shorter boy closer. Kurt felt more than a little ridiculous - standing at the edge of an almost-empty football field, kissing the guy who scored the final touchdown...sure, he'd imagined it before (though he wasn't about to say with whom; that was over and done with and not at all the point), but the reality made him almost dizzy in its surreality. He leaned against Puck's broad chest, made all the broader with the fourteen layers of pads he was wearing, and felt suddenly like to make the moment really complete he should be wearing Puck's oversized, tacky, completely-worn-and-slightly-gross letterman jacket or something.   
  
He rolled his eyes at the ridiculous image but didn't move away.


End file.
